BAD
by Mirlotta
Summary: Reese is Bad. Not Amity. Not Dauntless. Not Abnegation or Erudite or Candor. She's Bad. Really, really Bad. B. A. D. Bad.
1. Chapter 1

"What's your name?" He looks at me with his clear green eyes, speaking to my heart, my soul. The edge of a smile plays on my lips and I realise how easy it would be to crush his hopes. Just say a word and send them plummeting into the ground. It's almost too tempting to send him back the way he came, hurt gnawing at his heart put there by me. But the Amity don't think like this. The Amity are kind and considerate and would tell this boy their name without thinking twice. They've been trained to be this way - it's a part of them now, the garish yellow and red, even if it isn't truly the person inside. If I were Amity I would swish my long hair and giggle, come over more than a little embarrassed. I'd flutter my thick dark eyelashes and tell this meaningless boy my name, before rushing off to gush to my friends exactly how dreamy his eyes are. Unfortunately, I am not Amity. It is the name of my faction, obviously. But it is not the faction which is imprinted in every gesture and movement, repeated again and again in my brain. That faction is one I hold dear to me, one that I value above all else. It is not called Dauntless. It isn't called Abnegation either. I am not Erudite or even Candor, nor am I Factionless or one of the Divergent. Nope. I am Bad. Bad bad bad, every single inch of me. It sings constantly in the back of my head, taunting me to forget the Amity ways and run to where I belong. Sometimes I will seriously consider this - the life beyond - but then I call myself silly, an idiot for believing an outlandish rumour. Eliza has been planning our escape for weeks, months even - but we all know it's not going to happen this century. Not yet. Inside I am Bad. But for now I am Amity. I smile sweetly, then flick my hair over one shoulder. I giggle, then speak to green eyes. "Reese. My name is Reese." Reese. Hi there. I'm Reese. 


	2. Chapter 2

Let me introduce myself properly. You know my name of course, but you don't know anything about me. Not how I look, not how I act, not even who I am. All you really know is my name: Reese. Hi there. I'm Reese. I have dull mousy brown hair which both annoys me and seems to comfort me. My skin can only be described as pasty, and Amity's vibrant yellows do not compliment it. As for personality, I have no idea what my friends would describe me as. Maybe that's because my personality is too large to be put into words, but it's more likely that I just don't have any friends to describe me anyway. Don't get me wrong, I'm not alone. I have allies, companions and acquaintances who pry into my business like true Amity. I just don't have friends. I wouldn't trust them. Don't need them. Even this second, I am sitting hunched over on a hard wooden bench, squished up against said companions. You might mistake us for the Factionless - colours which shouldn't mix are sitting right next to each other and opposite each other and in Jacob and Yvonne's case on top of each other - but no one is doing anything about it. And why should we? The only way to get what we want is to ally, to mash the original factions together until they become something else. Next to me, Eliza stands clearing her throat. Every head in the room including mine whips to face her, suddenly at attention. Sometimes it still surprises to see the curious eyes of the Erudite bow before a mere Amity's will. I laugh out loud and furious glares hone in on me. I smother my laugh but a smile still remains. The Erudite follow the Amity here because here, the Amity are not just Amity. Here, the Amity are Bad. B. A. D. Bad. I laugh again, slightly louder and now I do not try to contain myself. It bubbles from the inside, up up and out - so different from a contained Amity giggle. In my head bells are peeling, and in the pit of my stomach I feel a song starting, a dance beginning. A dance of new life, the song of Beyond. It's not that we resent the factions - oh no, far from it. It's just, there has to be something beyond our city walls, something which we know nothing about. Something which we want to find out about. We don't fit in with the factions, any of us - we're different and that's wrong, that's terrible, that's bad - but it's also amazing and miraculous and the chance to start afresh. Eliza stamps her booted foot impatiently and my laughing ceases. She gives me an annoyed pointed look before beginning the speech she has no doubt prepared as always. "Ladies." Someone nudges me and I turn to see Matthew rolling his eyes. "Gentlemen." I smile and nudge him back. "Today is the day it is going to happen. We've been planning a long, long time as you know but today... Today we are really going to go there." Her voice drops to a hushed whisper. "Beyond..." 


	3. BEFORE

BEFORE: Reams of chattering girls swarm around me and I wonder how I ever thought I could be free here. Back in Dauntless, the friendly buzzing noises would be whoops and yelps, but really the two seem just the same. I rub self consciously at my dark inked tattoo, a tangled web of names on my shoulder. Here in Amity they have no marks to symbolise who they are. Not at all. Here they are just one great huge community. I can't believe I thought I'd like it. I have kept to myself for about a week since the choosing, stuck in a Faction that I don't really want to be in. Every initiate passed into the faction by the second day, all becoming firm friends as if they'd known each other their entire lives. "Hey!" A girl taps me on the shoulder. She is pretty, with warm brown eyes framed by chocolate coloured hair. She smiles, a wide grin showcasing pearly white teeth. "I'm Eliza. Who're you?" I raise my eyebrows, taken aback by her direct approach. She's a newly initiated Candor, definitely. I stare back monotonously. "Belinda," I say, giving an Erudite name. Maybe she'll stay clear of me. The Erudite are not to be crossed. "You're lying. What're you really called?" "Melissa." She folds her arms and sighs. I really need to get better at lying. I slump, defeated. "Fine. The name's Reese." Eliza's blinding beam reappears. "Great!" she says chirpily, "Now follow me!" Suddenly, she begins walking and manouvers her lean body through the crowd, twisting and turning until she reaches the entrance to a corridor. She looks back at me, and I get to my feet resignedly. I have nothing better to do than follow a random Amity I've just met down a corridor. Pathetic. Once I reach the corridor, I realise that this is the entrance to the Amity dorms and stop short, wary. But Eliza does not turn through any of the open doors. I steel myself, then stride after her. At the end of the hallway there is nowhere to go but a dead end, the entrance to the last of the dorms on both the left and the right walls. High up on the wall straight ahead of me, is a vent. I look towards it and realise that Eliza is doing the exact same thing. I groan, and turn to walk away before coming to an abrupt halt. Then my feet turn themselves around and I move to give the stranger a leg up. Inside the small shaft it reeks in a very bad way. The only available air is musty and lacks the coolness I long to feel lap over my skin. Eliza is surprisingly nimble for both a Candor and an Amity and at times I struggle to keep up with the smaller girl. Ahead of me, a shard of light cuts through my line of sight, temporarily blinding me. Reaching up my hand to shield myself I almost bump into Eliza who has stopped. Her upper body spins round, face ablaze with rage and if I didn't know better I would be scared. More than that. If I didn't know better I would be terrified. The light is right in front of her face, but hidden by iron bars I cannot see what it reveals. My new friend is fiddling with something in her pocket, bringing it up to the grate and then back to her pocket until a red light flashes and the grate swings away from the wall. I nod my head approvingly. Some gadget. One foot and then the other she swings out of the vent, landing nimbly on the ground. On my turn I aim for the same agility, praying that my years jumping out of trains will count for something now. I land in a crumpled heap on the floor, my humiliation only worsened when I register the hoards of faces peering at me. A boy in Erudite blue gets off his seat and makes to help me but Eliza stops him by holding out her hand. She clears her throat and then stamps her foot, something which in the future I will see quite a lot of. "My dear Reese," she says, "Welcome to Bad." 


End file.
